Greenwich Council: Allow the Continued Fostering of Abandoned and Unwanted Cats In SE2

The founder of the CatCuddles Sanctuary, a no-kill charity set up to rescue, rehome and rehabilitate cats in need, has been fostering a small number of cats at her home residence, in Howarth Rd, SE2, for nine years. Her name is Evina Koroni.

Evina has set up specialized suites in her garden for this purpose, where cats live until they are adopted into loving new homes. They are tended to by volunteers for the charity, who feed the cats, clean their suites and spend time cuddling them, every day for four hours.

Last year, Evina was directed to gain retrospective planning permission for this fostering. There was every indication that this was a mere formality, as Evina had been peacefully fostering for such a long period already, to the benefit of her surrounding community.

However, to the shock and dismay of both Evina and the CatCuddles team, this application was declined on February 1st. There are many discrepancies in the reasons cited for this refusal and hundreds of witnesses and documentation to highlight this.

The CatCuddles Sanctuary has foster homes all across London, but Howarth Rd is its most important. Though only a small number of cats are fostered there, because the charity has such a quick adoption turn over, the fostering has a massive impact, enabling CatCuddles to save the lives of hundreds of cats per year.

Often, these cats’ lives would be at risk without intervention, and the largely local people who are rehoming them are desperate for help and running out of time. They are people who have found stray cats or have even had them give birth in their gardens, who’ve allowed their own cats to get pregnant, who are being evicted or are emigrating and facing the prospect of euthanizing their cats, whose children have developed allergies and asthma from their cats, whose parents have died and left cats behind. These are just a few examples. Often these individuals have tried contacting other multiple other charities with no success.

The CatCuddles volunteer team also help local vets who’ve had cats dumped on their premises, neuter hundreds of stray cats in the area to help to keep their explosive numbers down, educate local pet owners on responsible ownership and help them to arrange neutering for their own pets, and of course pair hundreds of formerly unwanted cats with loving adoptive families.

If Evina is forced to stop fostering at her home in Howarth Rd, this will not put an end to CatCuddles, the charity, but will be a huge blow, potentially diminishing the charity's work for many months as we readjust, or resulting in the charity focusing on it's North London base and no longer having a positive impact in the Greenwich community, which is already without adequate coverage from rescues.

This is why the CatCuddles volunteer team will be appealing the council’s decision, and are asking for your help to do so.

Please sign this petition to show that you support the founder of CatCuddles, and her right to continue fostering cats at her home. Please help us so that we can continue helping others.